1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a pointing device and, in particular, to a pointing device with an illuminated rollable device that indicates a computer state by using an illumination mode of its rollable device.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional pointing devices with rollable devices can only generate pointing signals that are sent to a computer for controlling cursor displacement, or for scrolling windows on a display. The prior art pointing device cannot, however, receive and display messages sent from the computer. A user is thus incapable of learning the state of the computer from the conventional pointing device. For example, when the computer receives an e-mail message from a network and the display is not on, or the user is not looking at the monitor, the user cannot immediately know that there is an e-mail message and may consequently miss an important timed message. When the computer is in a specific operational mode, such as when a computer window has a scrolling navigation function, and the user does not scroll the window, the user will not be able to know that the window has the scrolling navigation function.